Because of the wealth of features offered by voice messaging systems, the last few years have witnessed an explosive growth in the use of such systems to meet communication needs that do not require direct person-to-person interactions. In such systems, the caller is ordinarily invited by a personalized or system announcement to leave a message because the called party is busy or unavailable. Alternatively, an announcement can provide a caller with various types of information, such as an initial prompting command or an alternate telephone number at which the called party may be reached. Typically, these announcements are pre-recorded in a particular language by the voice messaging system administrator or the called party. Unfortunately, the inflexibility of this approach prevents voice messaging systems users who do not share a common language to take full advantage of the communications benefits of such systems. The effects of this deficiency are manifested when an international caller is greeted by an incomprehensible foreign language announcement from a voice message system. As a result of the somewhat obscure nature of the greeting or announcement, the international caller and the called party are deprived of the full benefit of the voice messaging system. For example, callers are unable to verify that they have reached the right called party and consequently, may forego the opportunity to leave messages of a personal or confidential nature, notwithstanding the expense of the call. Similarly, any information provided by the announcement falls on "deaf ears".
This one-language limitation of the prior art takes on particular significance when one considers a) the increasing use of voice messaging systems in international communications (especially between countries with significant time zone differences) and b) the wide variety of languages spoken by users of voice messaging systems.